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The Alphabet

The Alphabet image
Parent Issue
Day
21
Month
January
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The name alphabet comes from the first two letters in the Greek, Alpha and Beta. Over 300 alphabets are known to the phüologists, oí which only 50 are now in use. The Gorman alphabet, as now employed, is a modiflcatiori of the Caroline, or the style introduced by Charlemagne. The Roman letters, rapresented by the plaiiiest of our capitals, were used until the latter part of the sixth oentury. The phüologists say that the English language should have an alphabet of at least 32 letters in order properly to represent all the sounds. Our alphabet has come to us from the Latin, which was derited from the Greek, which was a modification of and improveïnent upon the Phoanici'an. The several different forms of Ietter3, such as the Gothic, Lombardic and old black letter English, were moditications, according to taste and fancy, of the plain Roman alphabet. Among the earliest specimens of alphabetical writing are the insoriptions given on the monument of liing Eohmuunezer, which rival in importauce the Moabitic Lnsoription of King Mesha. The letter H was in Hebrew named Cheth, a hedge, or by soma authorities translated a stile. It is supposed that the form of the letter was an imitation of the steps through which entrance was gained into an inclosed field. Whether the Phcenicians borrowed their alphabet from the Jews, or whether the Hebrew alphabet was derived from the Phcenician, or whether both came from the Egyptian, are matters about which scholarts are not agreed.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News